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Chapter Fourteen: Stoking the Fires of Preparation

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This, but with blue eyes
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Credit: All by gugu-troll on DeviantArt

Bren could only watch in surprised silence as the cavern suddenly emptied of Thri-kreen. "Well," he said, letting out a long breath. "At least we didn't have to fight them. Stay alert, friends, in case they return when they think we aren't expecting them." He turned to Nivirea, explaining, "We had thought to talk to them, if it could be done without bloodshed. Based on what we know of their usual habitat, they aren't native here, anymore than we are, and that means they aren't likely to be Loviatar's allies, so we'd hoped to at least have neutrality between us, if not alliance. Ah, if we do meet again, bear in mind that they are not at all friendly to elves, so it would be best to avoid any mention of them." He smiled wryly. "I would have said, it might also be best to avoid any action they might consider hostile, but if they run instead of fight, it might not be a bad thing. I do appreciate your trying to show us where they all were, since they'd moved after Oreleth left to make her report."

He glanced around at the empty cavern. "Well, friends? If we're all ready to depart in any case, shall we continue?"
 
Oreleth gives Brendoran a nod. "Very well. Let us go." She lowers her bow, but keeps an arrow in hand, just in case.
 
"I'm glad there wasn't any bloodshed," Bria grinned, "but I'm still curious as to why the Thri-kreen fled! The way they were described made them sound kind of, well, mean!"

Oscar stretched his tiny limbs. "May I propose a theory?"

"Yes, please."

"They believed we were SkySting, or rather, that which brought doom to the Ankheg."

"Yeah," Powerpaw snapped, "an' I bet all of dem skinny buggy-faces went down dese holes too!" The tunnel yawned wide revealing holes of many sizes burrowed into the walls, ceiling, and floors. Powerpaw knelt low and sniffed one. Then he made a blanching expression displaying his distaste for what he had detected. "Yuuugh! Dey definitely went down dese holes!" Even standing, your new noses also detected something foul and altogether insect-like.

Stepping past the holes proved to be an easy feat for the tunnel traveled onward, high and wide with green and yellow moss and lichen providing just enough luminesence for feline eyes to see.

But then came sounds from around a bend, clattering sounds like stones striking stones. The winding bend was only 40 feet ahead of you, curving to the right, and around it the sounds came and went.

For a moment, you paused and pausing you soon found yourselves looking at the other members of your fellowship.

What do the Wayward Wanderers do?
 
Luna gives out a sigh. "Too bad that they scattered. If we were able to talk to them, we might have gotten a group of allies in this place. But all that is just water under the bridge. We need to move on."
Cantrips - 4
Detect Magic
Mage Hand
Ray of Frost
Shield

Level 1 - 6 +1 Evoker spell
Mage Armor
Burning Hands x2
Magic Missile x2
Shocking Grasp
Unseen Servant

Level 2 - 6 +1 Evoker spell
Blur x2
Flaming Sphere x2
Mirror Image
Web x2

Level 3 - 4 +1 Evoker spell
Fireball x2
Haste
Lightning Bolt x2

Level 4 - 4 +1 Evoker spell
Fly x2
Fireball x3

Level 5 - 3 +1 Evoker spell
Cone of Cold x4

Level 6 - 2 +1 Evoker spell
Chain Lightning x2
Disintegrate
 
Bren glanced around at the rest of the party. "Otiorin, Oreleth, can you quickly --but quietly -- go look and see if you can see what that was?"
 
Nodding, Oreleth slips forward with her bow in hand. "I will move like a ghost through here. Be back soon." Glancing over at Otiorin, she waits for him to be ready to go before starting out.
 
Otiorin Taletreader

With a nod to the ranger, Otiorin retrieved his own shortbow and set off with Oreleth, his padded feet making little noise on the stone floor.
 
Fantasy coffin.jpg (Image credit: The spooky and talented Nick Egberts)
Soft yellow and green light illuminated the cavern as they Wayward Wanderers planned their course of action. As Oreleth the Arcane Archer and Otiorin the Sorcerer/Rogue crept away from the fellowship, there was in each of them an instinctive temptation to drop to all fours, tail low, ears forward. But all such inclinations ceased as they rounded the corner and absorbed what their open eyes and ears told them.

There, about 40 feet ahead of them, lay a clearing some 40 feet in diameter riddled with bones like some macabre pool out of an undead nightmare. Most of the bones were discolored and damaged. Almost all showed signs of having been broken.

As Otiorin and Oreleth peered, they saw the pool of bones stopped at a wide, thick wall made of dark gray stone blocks like that of the wall of some ancient keep or small castle. Along this wall, wooden posts were driven into the niches between the blocks. The posts rose like strange, uncertainly-made stairs, up and up until the light ran out and neither Wayward Wanderer could see. The posts were a dangerous affair for the likes of elves and half-elves, but less so for naturally large and dextrous creatures like Felane.

But that was not all. For out in the pond of bones, four things floated eerily above the bloodstained floor. They were coffins. Upright, chain-held, metal coffins. They looked to be about 8 feet in height and they roved aimlessly about the bones, sometimes bumping into them. This was the source of the clattering sound you had heard.

The tunnel ended here as had many lives before you had discovered this chilling place. What do Oreleth and Otiorin do?
 
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.:|Nivirea - The (Felane) Sorceress |:.

"I am... going to follow them," said the young sorceress, somehow making it sound almost as if there was a question mark at the end. She did glance briefly at Bren, but otherwise spared not a moment before she started down the tunnel.
 
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Oreleth looks at the floating coffins with a bit of surprise. Of all the things that I expected to see, this did not even make the list. She looks over at Otiorin and quietly says, "Go back and tell the others. I will stay here and watch these to make sure that nothing comes out."
 
Otiorin Taletreader

At the sight of the room, a deep nameless dread overcame him. The seemingly endless number of bones, the coffins, it all seemed like some parable from a book of forbidden lore. As Oreleth spoke, he looked at her and nodded, "Gladly."
He turned, paused then turned back.
"If anything occurs, do not linger here. I'd not want you to join these others laid here."
 
Bren could only nod as Nivirea took herself off down the tunnel. If she was going to be curious anyway, maybe he should send her as one of the scouts next time, at least while they were all in Felane form. At least so far she'd chosen to go off, not by herself, but to join others of the party, unlike some he'd adventured with in the past. His expression grew more somber as he remembered the fate of two in particular, who'd gone too far from the group and gotten themselves killed before Bren and the rest could find them. Well, he'd do what he could to prevent Nivirea and all the rest of his new friends here from meeting a similar fate. Perhaps asking her to do what she would have done anyway would get her used to doing as he asked? He thought about that while he waited for their three scouts to return.
 
As Nivirea traveled forward and Otiorin prowled back to their group, the two Sorcerers met in the middle. If they wished to exchange words there, they did.

In due time, Otiorin met with Brendoran and the others and relayed while Nivirea joined shadowy Oreleth and saw what her fellow had been keeping her eyes on.

Psychie Psychie

But Oreleth with her keen and slitted eyes had spotted something unsual before Nivirea's arrival. It was the piles of bones the coffins were endlessly circling over. At least twice now, the patient Arcane Archer saw a single patch of those bones move all by themselves!

It was quite strange since bones were not supposed to clatter and clash all by themselves, but there! A third time! That same little hill of white had rippled like a placid pond with a stone thrown in its center. No bones in her Forest Eternal had ever done that!

Then Oreleth heard Nivirea's quiet approach and the two were together again.

What do the Wayward Wanderers do? =)
 
As Otiorin returned to the Wayward Wanderers' main force, he was met with Bria who met him with an expression of curiosity and a nice warm hug to welcome his return. Powerpaw, however, stared at Otiorin with an equally-strong expression of curiosity but instead of a hug, the eager warrior said, "Hay! Hay, Oti! Whud'ya see over dere? Izzit big? Izzit strong? An' most of alls - kin I smack it in da face?!" Powerpaw quickly looked back and forth from Otiorin to Brendoran as he asked this.

"Shush, Fuzzy Goof!" Bria patted the paw holding his maul. "One learns wisdom by listening!"

So Powerpaw restrained himself and listened!

Captain Hesperus Captain Hesperus
 
Otiorin Taletreader

Otiorin returned Bria’s hug with a warm one of his own.
“The room at the end is...wrong, somehow. The floor is covered end to end in naked, broken bones. There appears to be a stair of sorts, made of posts ascending to who-knows-where. Yet, for all that the room is eerie, it is made more so by the presence of four coffin-like entities. They are made from iron, or a metal like it, wrapped in chains and animated to roam throughout the room. What fell role those coffins fulfil, I know not, but I sense it is naught but ill.”
 
Oreleth reaches out to touch Nivirea's shoulder, then points over at the pile of bones that are moving on their own. With a quiet whisper, she says, "Look closely, right over there. If my eyes do not deceive me, they appear to be animated. We may be facing undead. Can you confirm what my senses are telling me?"
 
This took but a few moments to confirm, for if Nivirea followed Oreleth's claw, she too saw an odd bend in the white, a single flexing of skeletons, like some large creature burrowing under desert sand, a mound slowly and ominously rose and fell like the breathing of some giant thing under the bones.

Then all was still again like the silence after one wakes from a stirring dream.
 
.:|Nivirea - The (Felane) Sorceress |:.

"I see it," Nivirea replied, focusing on making best use of her new Felane senses. "Something stirs beneath the bones. If I had to guess, I'd say that we've reached one of the entrances to the Castle of Anguish... and whatever guards it."
 
Luna listens to the description of the room from Otiorin, but he has not given her enough information to make an accurate assessment of what monster(s) might be lurking in there. But, she does say, "If there are bones and coffins, it is likely that we are facing some sort of undead."
 
Bren nodded. "Undead, or at least a necromancer intending to create them. Well, if it's stationary -- and if it's chained down, that's pretty stationary," he half-smiled at that, "-- then we likely won't be able to scare it away. Diplomacy is unlikely, but we can give it a try until we know more. Let's go meet up with the others." With that, he led the way quietly down the hall.
 
Fantasy coffin.jpg (Image credit: The spooky and talented Nick Egberts)
The Wayward Wanderers made their way through the cavern, the chink of their armor and the rustling of their gear was interrupted only by that odd movement of bones you heard. But seeing it at Oreleth's direction perhaps only made things even more unpleasant. The quartet of coffins hovering above the bones was unnatural enough, but what of the thing that rustled the bones from beneath? All that was sure was that unquiet things stirred where none should.

One look and Powerpaw turned sourly to all of you. "Okies, guyz. A Kitty-face haz gotta say it... Floatin' coffins?! What da heck iz dat all about?!"
 
Luna looks into the room with curiosity, wondering what this might signify.

OOC Can I make a Monster Lore check to see if I know what this might be? Or an Arcana check?
 
Oreleth keeps her bow in hand, ready to fire. As she does so, she points out the movement in the bones. In a quiet voice, she says, "It looks like there is something there, moving about in the bones."
 
This, but with blue eyes
full

Credit: All by gugu-troll on DeviantArt

Bren nods to Oreleth and Nivirea as the group rejoins once more, but the greater part of his attention is on the macabre scene before them. He nodded once more in reply to Oreleth's pointing out the movement of the bones, studying them and the coffins while racking his brain for anything he might have heard that resembled this. "Nivirea, Luna, Bria, keep the rear of the group. Powerpaw and I will stay in front, at least until we know something more about this."
 
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